Brother 2 (Брат 2) is the 2000 sequel to the cult favorite Brother (Брат), released in 1997.
The film starts out with Danila Bagrov, the hero of both films, taking part in a television program about the heroes of the Chechen War, which he had fought in several years earlier. He gets involved soon after in criminal activities once again, as a friend of his, a security guard for a bank, is gunned down and he wants revenge. Simultaneously, his brother, Viktor, needs his help, in a turn of events that echoes but is the opposite of those of the first film. Viktor and Danila team up in this new endeavor and they find themselves traveling to the United States and entering the criminal underworld of Chicago, where the Ukrainian mafia holds sway.
Potential American viewers should be warned that many of the scenes that take place in the United States—in New York, and Chicago—may be highly offensive, as the attempt to portray people of different ethnicities and races just descends immediately into racism.
The film did very well, with fans of the first one perfectly satisfied with the sequel. It got good audience ratings and, like its prequel, appears on KinoPoisk’s list of top films (according to audience vote). It was nominated for only one award, for the Gold Rose at the Kinotavr film festival. The film’s official website also won a National Internet Prize for presentation of cultural events. Film critics’ opinions seem less important when dealing with cult films of this type, though one, Andrey Orletskiy, wrote that “the stupidity [of the film] is terrible, but somehow I liked it.”
This film marks the end of the Brother series. There is, however, a video game based on it, Brother 2: Back to America (Брат 2: Обратно в Америку)—it is a first-person shooter and was one of the first fully Russian computer games. It did not receive good reviews from the gaming community. There is also a documentary about the film called Brother 2: Film About the Film (Брат 2: Фильм о фильме).
Director: Aleksey Balabanov
Stars: Sergey Bodrov Jr., Viktor Sukhorukov, Sergey Makovetskiy, Irina Saltykova, Kirill Pirogov
Production company: Kinokompaniya STV
Box office take: $1.08 million
Official trailer:
